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Synthetic Reality

My Philosophy

Cheat Codes are a traditional feature of most games, mainly as a diagnostic tool for the developer. In a single-player game there is seldom an issue to be made about them. However, in a multiplayer game, it is important to distinguish between level achieved 'the hard way' or 'the easy way'.

Many would say: "Don't allow cheating in a multiplayer environment!" However, my experience is (to paraphrase Jurassic Park) that: "Cheaters will find a way." If you specifically claim that no cheating is allowed, that just throws down a gauntlet of challenge. Soon cheating is rampant and you no longer have any way to distinguish between pure and cheated levels and ranks. (Can you say Diablo?)

Hence I decided early on in WoS to establish a two-track system, where cheating is officially allowed (though not necessarily encouraged), but your character is then marked as a cheat character. Once marked, your character is limited in certain ways when interacting with pure characters (for example, you can't give them money or items, nor can you hit them - unless they hit you first). Each player can see the cheat status of every other player via a column on the MAP screen.

Some players use this information as the basis of a vendetta ("All cheaters must die!") and I don't see the sense in this. The level 99 cheat character simply deserves less respect for their accomplishment, but is not necessarily a lower form of life. (For example, I had to cheat my way through the second half of Half Life because I wanted to see how the story turned out, but had lost the bloodlust to do it honestly)

If you spot a way in which a cheated character can actually diminish the quality of gameplay for a pure player, please let me know and I'll try to plug the hole.


Cheat Warnings:

Don't just arbitrarily dismiss any warning dialogs which you see in WoS. They are your chance to back-out before taking an action which will mark your character as a cheat character.

I try to warn you before each such action, but I cannot 100% guarantee to protect you. If you *do* use a cheat code, I advise shutting down and restarting the game before creating or using a new character, since there is some chance the cheat status could bleed into the other character. Once marked, I can't un-mark you, so be careful.

Use magic-trainers at your own risk. The game periodically does a sweep to detect them.


The Cheat Codes:

After all that, you'll see that most of the codes themselves are pretty boring. As I said, they are there to help me with development. MOST of the codes here will NOT mark your character as a cheater. In fact, this is probably the only place you will find documentation of some fairly important game features :-).

To use a code, type it into the chat window as the first word on a line. Some codes take arguments, some don't. Note: If you define an 'alias' which looks the same as a cheat code, the alias will have precedence.

This first table contains codes which do NOT mark your character as a cheat character (always read the warnings - this might change).

In no particular order:

/funpak This opens a floating window which logs various internal game activities. It is mostly of interest to world designers as it shows error messages generated when a world is loaded.
/tune <channel#> This command sets your current 'gossip' channel number. If you don't enter a channel number, it just tells you what your current channel is. Channel numbers are between 0 and um.. I forget.
/bubbles Some people don't like my wonderful "chat bubbles" (seen in scenes only). This command lets you toggle them on and off.
/fps This toggles the FRAMES PER SECOND meter on and off (it appears in the upper right corner of the map or scene window). I'm not sure if this works in release builds or not.
/afk <message> This command turns on your AFK (Away From Keyboard) status so people understand why you are not responding to them. A special graphic appears next to your name on the MAP list. If you provide an optional message, it will be automatically typed as a reply to any sentence which begins with your character's name. (Any subsequent chat typing on your part will turn off your AFK status automatically.)
/shout <message> Well, sorry for all the non-cheats! This is how you make sure your message is heard by everyone in the world (unless they have Muted All Shouting). You can also do this by starting your sentence with an exclamation mark (!).
/w <message> This sends your message only to the current 'whisper target.' The target is set by right-clicking on a name in the MAP list and selecting the whisper command. Thereafter a pair of lips will appear on the MAP list next to your current whisper target. (You can only have one whisper target at a time). You can also send a whisper by starting your sentence with a semicolon (;)
/fx <effect#> If you are in a scene, this command turns on one of the special effects (like the water ripple effect). A value of 0 turns the effect off. Only you see this.
/weather <weather#> If you are in a scene, this changes the weather to the number you specify. A value of 0 turns the weather off. My favorite is "/weather 9" which is heavy snow. Look how the snow sticks!
/bkgnd <jpeg name> If you are in a scene, this changes the background jpeg to the one you specify. The file has to exist in either the world or the wos "scenes" folder. I don't think you need to add the ".jpg" suffix, but I forget. This is mainly of use to world designers who are trying to get the best look for a scene.
/theme <theme#> This selects a new 'sound theme' (those background environmentals like lakeside, heavy rain, etc.) I'm always looking for new theme possibilities, so feel free to send me (free) wave files. Setting it to zero turns it off.
/midi <midi name> This starts a new MIDI music file playing. The file you name must be in the world's or Wos "MIDI" folder. Again, I don't think you add the ".mid" suffix, but I can't recall for sure. To stop the music, type "/midi " (don't forget the space.)
/sayings This is the same as selecting "Book Of Sayings" from the BOOKS menu. It starts up a copy of notepad to let you manually edit your current aliases.
/diary This is the same as selecting "Personal Diary" from the BOOKS menu. It starts a copy of WordPad and lets you edit your diary document.
/colors This is the same as selecting "Book of Colors" from the BOOKS menu. The Book of Colors lets you choose colors for various flavors of incoming chat text.
/skin This is the same as selecting "Book of Skins" from the BOOKS menu. This book lets you review skin files you have collected, and to switch your current character's skin (solo game only).
/pi This opens the "Let's Find Pi" mini-game. It's thrilling.
/wav <wav filename> This plays the specified .WAV file (which must be present in the world's or wos SFX folder)
/pokedex This is the same as selecting "Pokedex" from the BOOKs menu. This opens a list of all the monsters defined in the world, along with their stats.
/pet This is the same as pushing the TRAIN PET button on the EQUIP screen. It opens your Pokegatchi Training Pen. It might be a bad idea to do this when you are not incarnated, so perhaps this command is a bit dangerous (crash? corrupt character?)
/asteroid This opens the Big Ol' Space Rocks mini-game without having to walk to Stonetree (or in worlds which haven't added an arcade link). Again, if high scores are ever recorded it might be dangerous to do this when not incarnated.
/villagers This opens a special viewer which lets you browse all the filmstrips in your world's MONSTERS folder. This is very useful for a scene designer who needs to know the file name and image number for a particular ACTOR in a scene.
/q This opens the specialized 'Quest Editor' to rummage through the world's "quest.txt" file. Although this LOOKs like a real editor, be sure to save your work frequently. What makes it specialized are some search tricks and the fact that it handles TABs the same way as visual C++ (meaning your columns might line up). This is definitely for world designers. Do NOT modify the quest.txt file which ships with WoS or subsequent patches WILL FAIL. Make a copy first and do your experimenting in your own world ("Clone of Evergreen").
/q <fileName> Modern quest.txt files use a lot of "#include" directives to embed other files within them (this allows moving a large table, like SPELLS into a separate file, like SPELLS.TXT). To edit such a file with the specialized quest editor, type "/q spells.txt"

Note, only one file can be open at a time in the quest editor, so save your work before opening a new file. You can use any text editor you like, of course, for your world files. Beware of having the same file open in two editors.
/eavesdrop This toggles your eavesdrop status on and off (the same as if you used the right-click popup menu in the chat window). While eavesdropping you hear pretty much everything said in the world (except whispering and gossipping). With eavesdropping off, you only hear people who are 'nearby' (on the map, in your scene, a member of your party).

Please note: Your privacy IS NOT GUARANTEED anywhere in WoS. Always assume your mom is listening.

/homework Occasionally I am asked to help with homework and a computer solution shouts out to be made. Since I am usually editing WoS anyway, I just cram it in there. As of this writing the problem had to do with 'how many locker doors would still be open' and the results were kinda cool (ended up being a prime number generator).
/seance This toggles the SEANCE setting, the same as using the right-click popup menu in the chat window. While a SEANCE is active, you can see and hear ghosts (who are otherwise invisible). Ghosts are people who are passively watching the game (spectators). They pick one player to 'haunt' and then become an invisible member of that player's party. They can BLESS or CURSE that player (and thereby make a trivial change to the random part of the outcome of attacks)
/bleep <bad word> This adds a word to your personal bleeper list. Anytime someone types this word (while you have your bleeper on) it will be replaced by the word "bleep". For example "/bleep butt" would then cause all future occurences of "butt" to appear as "bleep" instead. Which means "butter" would turn into "bleeper" :-) It's a MIRACLE!
/unbleep <word> I don't give you an actual 'bleeper editor' since that would expose your gentle eyes to a concentrated list of foulness. Instead, I give you the Unbleep command which lets you remove a word, if you can spell it. However, I don't let you remove the stock bleeper list (it's pretty short, mainly the F word). To return to the stock list, use the command "/unbleep ALL"
/mic On occasion I use WoS to further my plans for world domination, which include some signal processing issues (I want to be able to talk to my pets). This command turns on the microphone sampling code. (It probably conflicts with other programs, the embedded speech feature, etc.) It doesn't even work with some sound cards.
/nomic This makes a half-hearted attempt to turn off the microphone sampling code, but it probably doesn't work very well and you'll need to shut WoS down completely to really stop it.
/speech This opens a screen which looks a bit like an oscilloscope and (if you have already given the /mic command) might bounce around in time to your voice.
/terrain This command toggles the terrain map overlay. While officially this should probably be a cheat, it is easy to get snagged on some otherwise invisible terrain and this might be your only way to escape.
/help <keyword> I was a little proud of this one, as it was so economical. Type "/help magic" and it opens the Help File to the topics list with a scan for the keyword 'magic.'
/element This the same as pushing the TRAINING button on the SPELLs list. It opens the element traiing screen (where you can spend PP to boost power in specific elements). Again, this might be dangerous to use when not incarnated.
/phist Short for "Packet History" this command prints a little report in the chat window summarizing the total number of each kind of packet you have received, plus the effective bandwidth consumption of each packet type. I use this to optimize the game for low bandwidth (biggest bandwidth headache today is all that quick-clicking in a small area to stimulate a monster fight. I have a plan for that.. stay tuned)
/preset Short for "Packet Reset" this just zeroes out the counters used by the "/phist" command so you can start aggregating new bandwidth numbers from RIGHT NOW only.
/a <message> Known as the ACTION command, this just removes the colon after your name when your message is seen by others. So, instead of "Samsyn: <message>" they see "Samsyn <message>"
This lets you do things like "/a likes you" and have it seen as "Samsyn likes you" (he does!)
/easter <year> Computes and displays the date of easter for the given year. Hey, why not? You know you wanted this!
/www... precede a URL with a slash (starting with http: or www.) and it will open that page
/pal N where N is 0-255 lets you try out a color table without restarting WoS or reloading the world. All new monsters and actors which enter the scene will be translated by the specified color. table 0 "/pal 0" returns you to the normal colors. Note this overrides any colorTable settings you have in your world and ALL actors/monsters will get this manually applied color table.
/dist N intended to help world developers plan their monster placements. (though players could use it to check the hunting-areas of various monsters, I 'spose... I'd still like to have a nice GS feature on that subject someday...) Anyway, N is a map number (0- whatever), or -1 for all maps (be prepared to scroll). It just shows monster distribution by level and by element. It doesn't give you any position information (the monster placement editor already does that for World Developers). This command only works for 'placed' monsters, not monster groups or monsters in scenes. I have a teensy plan for a new feature which I can't predict whether Josh will love or hate... Probably the latter... ok... it's palette-shifting for monster skins. The idea being to algorithmically (yuck!) swap red and green, for example. I dunno... it might work OK.... Anyway, the goal is an economical way to extend monster skin count without a lot of extra download. The goal-goal being to have more monsters to fight at each level.
/mags This calls the "magnificent attack" routine one MILLION times and then tells you how many mag hits you got. You should see about one in 50
/pwd This tells you your 'current working diectory' and is intended to be used by people with disappearing buttons. It should show the path to your WoS folder and my theory is that when your buttons disappear it will instead show the path to somewhere else, and you'll recognize that path and tell me and then we'll know what is changing the path. But since this version also no longer depends on that path (for the most part), you may never see your buttons disappear again, so this command might not be useful. Well, it will still be good to know, so after your buttons WOULD have disappeared, see if the path has changed anyway :-)
/password *As of A56, you can optionally password protect your heroes.*

Now, of course, they are still saved in files which your little brother or sister could delete, but other than that you will need the password to use or purge them (via the in-game purge button).

And if you FORGET your password, don't come begging to me, coz I will have no idea.

HOW TO SET/CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD:

After incarnating, type /password to set a new password. (you'll have to know the old one if there already is one set).

You will have to enter the new password twice (two edit boxes) and spell it the same way each time.

CASE IS IMPORTANT. So you idiots who like to "tYpE IN CrAzy TaLK" are doomed to forget your passwords! Did I say 'idiots'? I'm sorry. A slip of the tongue. Pay attention to your caps lock key when entering passwords...there's no 'upper case asterisk' to remind you :-)

Thereafter, you will be prompted for that password each time you attempt to incarnate as that character. Or if you use the 'purge' button on that character.

HOW DO I REMOVE A PASSWORD?

Use /password again, enter the current password when prompted, then leave the two new password boxes empty. setting your password to a blank password removes your existing password. Make sense?

WHAT IF I FORGET MY PASSWORD?

You're screwed!

So.. wouldn't it be HILARIOUS if your little brother or sister SET YOUR PASSWORD TO SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T KNOW?

Face it, there is nothing WoS can do to protect you from a renegade brother, sister, or friend. You'd best seek other solutions to that problem :-) Otherwise, they're bound to figure out how to reformat your hard drive eventually.

Don't run out and password protect your favorite characters as soon as you get A56. Give the password feature a good tryout on a character you don't need first. or make backups. or something.

/version This command lets you, the world developer, set an official version number for your world in development. If you officially version your world, then players will not get marked as modders when they play it. If you then make changes to your world and publish it without setting the version again, then ALL players will be marked as modders!
/coverage This command prepares a report of which items and spells are using which magic and attack path images. If you don't know what that means, then you don't need to use this command. But it helps you make sure you aren't over-using the same bit of art excessively, and that you haven't left any out either.
/fail This command casts the currently selected spell several thousand times (in its head) and then reports how many times the cast 'failed.' This is for people who don't trust the math which determines (via level and wisdom) how often spells "fail"
/coord This command toggles an on-screen coordinate display. So when you point the mouse inside the main scene window, you see the (x,y) coordinates of where you are pointing. These are the proper coordinates to use in the scripted ACTOR commands.
   

Here are cheat codes which DO mark your character as a cheat character:

/inn This recharges your character's HP and MP to their current maximum values. Originally I was going to have Inns in the game for you to recharge at (like every other RPG on the planet), but then I opted for the Soul Brother religious technique.
/scene <scene#> This causes you to immediately drop into the scene specified. You pretty much need this if you are a world designer, as it is the easiest way to test your individual scene scripts.
/gimme A perennial favorite. This gives your character one of every item, every spell, every piece of equipment, etc. Now try to get rid of them!
/give <thing> A more focused form of "/gimme" this gives your character exactly one thing. The thing is specified by a letter followed by a number. This is intended for world designers to be able to easily prepare a character for a scene which looks at tokens. Some example 'things' are: T22 (token 22), I15 (item 15), S43 (spell 43), G200 (200 GP), and maybe some others.
/take <thing> Same as "/give" only this REMOVES one of the specified things from your character. Say you are developing a scene which is based on tokens (and which gives you a token). This lets you remove that token manually so as to re-experience the scene over and over until you get the scripting right.
/fight <monster#> If you are the host of a scene (say you just pressed your CAMP button), then you can use this command to bring individual monsters into your scene. (you can give the command several times, but will probably crash if you do it too much). Monster ID numbers can be found in the pokedex. This is intended to allow world designers to play-test monsters easily. You do NOT earn GP or XP from these monsters. Solo Mode Only
/fight L23 Same as 'fight' but brings in a monster of the specified LEVEL (first one it finds in the monster table) instead of by specific monster ID. The example here is level 23. This is of most use to me when trying to balance the damage mathematics between various classes and elements.
/reload Say you're editing your world's quest file(s) and you want to see if your changes are working. Well, they won't until you RELOAD them. (this basically compiles your quest files into the in-memory tables used by the game). So, after changing a quest file: 1) SAVE YOUR CHANGES, 2) RELOAD.
Re-entering a world from the world menu automatically reloads, of course, from the current quest file set.
/monster This command toggles an overlay which shows where monsters are placed on the map and their 'range' If you are inside of a range circle, then you have a chance of meeting that monster. The closer to the center of the circle, the more of them you might meet at once. If you are inside two overlapping circles, you might meet either or both, etc.

THIS IS NOW A CHEAT CODE UNLESS YOU HAVE A GOLDEN SOUL.

   
   
   

And that, as they say, is that.

 
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